Colorblind
by xXxJazzy B. RealxXx
Summary: Lucy poked her elder sister playfully, "He might need to call you again, remember?" Suddenly, neither of them were as colorblind as before. Not when hope came in the shade of beige with a lion's face. Susian/Caspian one-shot.


**Publish Date: 2008**

******_Disclaimer: _**_Does NOT own the painfully-beautiful Prince Caspian or the rest of the crew. __Takes place at the end of the movie._

* * *

He was colorblind.

The world of Narnia had lost the magic behind its wizardly colors. _His_world, which was now a montony of coffee black and eggwhite, was thirsty for some other shade. At the same time, he recalled this. He recalled sitting on top of the hillside to gaze down on the fairytale land below him just like this; he recalled feeling misplaced, unwanted, hopeless—just like this. This time, he was staring emptily over his very own kingdom instead of Narnia's ruins, but his chafed heart remained the same.

Caspian lifted a hand of dirty fingers to his lips. He mapped out the pucker of them with his fingertip, trying to memorize the tenderness of another's. The cool whip of wind played tag with the bangs that fell into his eyes as morning broke free from night. The King didn't know what frustrated him more; the fact that he still longed for _her _presence or the fact that his modesty kept him from ever approaching it...

* * *

_Aslan had returned, the war was over, peace was restored, and all on the priority list had been checked off—except one. Caspian jogged down the steps of the courtyard, scanning the perimeter as eagerness crawled under his flesh like ticks. His heart was feverish with every casual step he took._

_He would find her._

_Talk to her._

_Get to know her._

_Even if it would be about why the sky was blue, he would take this chance to speak to her without guilt or anxiety cramping up his muscles. Even so, his chivalry wasn't dead and he'd respect her space if she wasn't interested in conversing with him. When Caspian caught sight of what he had been looking for, he stopped short. There the queen was—strolling through the halls in a gown that was layered in clashes of blue and white to bring out her porcelain complexion while her hair curled down to her chest in soft, silky rings of brown to perfect royal apparel._

_Just when the hints of a smile came breaking out on his cheeks, he realized her Highness was very much not alone. Alas, she was steeped knee-deep in a conversation with Aslan and High King Peter._

_Not the right time._

_…Once again._

_Caspian bit back the bitter taste of disappointment in his mouth before edging away to leave. Unfortunately, Aslan had picked up on his scent._

_"Your Majesty?" the majestic voice of the great lion seemed to summon a binding spell over Caspian's feet._

_Caspian jerked his head their way as if caught for trespassing, and stared jaw-slacked at Aslan, High King Peter and…Queen Susan. They all turned to him expectantly, silently. Queen Susan's expression stood out the most. As Caspian fully turned around to face him, his interests only fell on Queen Susan. For a moment of silence, he took her in, barely closing his mouth. He had seen her in the garments of an amazoness with dirt on her rosy cheeks, dried blood in her nail beds, and of course, her famous bow and arrow. But now, she looked like the Queen he read about in his books. Susan, the Gentle._

_However, as of right now, there was something that was tainting her. The face that was usually sculpted with fearlessness was now ruined by sadness. Caspian found himself staring longer, wanting to understand, wanting to know..._

_Suddenly he realized Aslan was casting suspicious glances between the two of them, and blinked dumbly. Caspian swallowed and nodded at Aslan with a forced smile, "We are ready; everyone has assembled."_

_Aslan and Queen Susan exchanged disappointed looks as Caspian assumed he'd spent too much time in their presence. He looked between the two while stepping back, forgetting his bow and only remembering his foolishness as he walked away._

* * *

Caspian fisted the grass under his palm, glancing at the patch beside him. His professor would not be here to talk him through his tedium. As he progressively angled his face to gaze afar, he underwent a light pang in his chest. What was the feeling he had for her? It couldn't have been love at first sight; he'd never seen what that actually looked like, after all. How do you recognize something like that?

He wooed many women in his lad years—some who were far more beautiful than she, but Queen Susan was the only woman he'd ever met straight off a page of his Professor's novels. It was not her looks that engrossed him, but rather the idea of her. She was the only woman to have stepped right out of magic, out of fantasy, out of myth. She would have a chapter in his life's own novel for all eternity, no matter whom he loved next in his lifetime. Even if love had nothing to do with it, that deep spark of admiration and adoration would never fade away.

"The Gentle…" Caspian kneaded the bridge of his nose under muffles of his Telmar accent, continuing to reminisce...

* * *

_"You're just…not exactly what I expected," Prince Caspian sized up the youthful band of kings and queens, trying not to crack a jestful smile._

_But then…_

_His eyes had skimmed over a rare pair of turquoise. Caspian's crooked smile stayed intact as he took the chance to double-take on Queen Susan the Gentle. A surge of overwhelming fascination overruled his train of thought. There she stood, at first a mere figment of a Narnian fairy tale, now staring back at him under long lashes and shy eyes. Caspian's chest deflated with the exhale of a shuddery breath, his own eyes half-lidded at the disbelief of her. He began measuring her up to the paragraphs that revolved around her._

_So this was she…? This was that famous queen he longed to childishly meet? She was no mundane queen, either. Queen Susan ruled the bewitched lands of Narnia; a queen of a type of enchantment that he never believed in eighteen hours ago. What a noble sight to behold! A living, breathing fairy tale._

_Was she as loyal as the narrator narrated?_

_Was she as strong as the purple prose boasted?_

_Was she as intelligent as her fictionalized dialogue quoted?_

_Queen Susan glanced at High King Peter with a faint smile playing at her lips. She looked down for a moment to avoid Caspian's gaze, but when her eyes came back to meet him, he forgot the army around him before King Edmund's voice pulled him back in. That was the one and only time Queen Susan had ever been so inviting of him._

* * *

Caspian looked down on the marble horn in his hands.

He had secretly fancied the Narnian Queen before he met her, smirking at the idea of meeting her in person and perhaps wooing her like he did the other maidens. Just an amusing little notion it was back then. He never thought his funning would be reality, for he found it nearly impossible to woo her Highness. He was scared to even brush shoulders with her, any contact that would make her distant from him. After all, he was nothing compared to her. Absolutely nothing.

Caspian tried to smile to split through his moping. He never knew how scared, under-ranked and out of place a girl—_woman_, could make him feel, and yet so relieved and breathless when that woman's lips met his.

In the end, he didn't woo her.

She wooed him.

* * *

She was colorblind.

Her world, which was now a monotony of coffee black and egg-white, was thirtsy for some other shade. She wondered if she was just colorblind, or if the train had always looked this ugly.

"Phyllis? Phyllis!"

Susan blinked off the thoughts of her last moments in Narnia. She looked up at the freckle-cheeked boy that was grinning his bucktooth grin at her.

"What's wrong? You look upset."

Susan arched her dark eyebrows in a sarcastic insult she kept to herself before looking back down on her pale knees.

"Yes, I was thinking about something…" She faked a smile, an empty hole creeping back into her system that she'd had before they returned to Narnia.

"You're thinking about a boy, aren't you?" The boy adjusted the lenses of his glasses.

By now, Lucy and Edmund were giving one another pitying glances. Susan frowned as she finally steadied a direct stare on the boy. Her mouth opened to argue against the nonsense, but her eyes were dashing from right to left, as if unsure.

"What makes you say that?" She answered, looking ahead with an even stiffer smile.

"Because girls only get that look when they're thinking about a guy."

"And what would HE know about GIRLS?" Edmund muttered to a giggling Lucy, earning an elbowing from Susan.

Susan replied to nothing else after that. It hadn't even been sixty seconds since they left Narnia and already she was battling with herself to move on. Narnia always felt more like home than England. Always. Now she had even more to regret over – Caspian.

She regretted ever smiling at him.

She regretted the first flutter of bumble bees in her stomach when she saw the way he looked at her.

She regretted ever kissing him.

Most of all, she regretted ever desiring him.

She had tried her best to keep her heart at a safe distance from his –to not be drawn to him and his foreign beauty, because she knew how much it would hurt in the end. She knew she would leave. She wished she had done a better job with governing her feelings. That kiss, a spur in the moment, granted more remorse in her soul than ever before. She never knew how many sensations she could discover just by being under the lips of another. Sensations she could never witness again, for nothing could conquer a first kiss. Even though they hardly communicated, she felt the same temptations he had in wanting to get to know each other.

Prince Caspian was unforgettable…

Because he was her first.

Her first interest.

Her first kiss.

There was absolutely no forgetting him now.

No forgetting the taste of spice on his rough, yet silken lips.

No forgetting the vaguely sprouting whiskers on his chin that tickled hers when their lips had seeded such passionate farewells.

Susan slicked a lock of brown behind her ear, continuing to reminisce…

* * *

_"So that's it, then..." Susan inhaled as her arms swung limply at her sides with every step she took. "Edmund and Lucy can come back, but we can't."_

_"We always knew this would happen..." Peter admitted, walking on the other side of the Zeus-like lion._

_Aslan shook out his mane and turned to rest a heavy-weight stare on Susan._

_"Is there something else that troubles you other than leaving behind Narnia?" Aslan was smirking behind the velvets of his voice; she knew it._

_Susan looked at his sharp, beady eyes before smiling sheepishly, "Aslan…"_

_"Your Majesty?"_

_Susan returned her baffled look to Aslan, but noticed that he wasn't addressing her this time. His curiosity was on dear Prince Caspian._

_He was feet away, looking slim and masculine in the silk of his attire, jaw dropped just by a little. Susan felt like she was swallowing coal when she returned the look he was giving her. She couldn't bring herself to smile. If only this naïve Prince knew. A shudder of sadness radiated off of her as thoughts of leaving this place and this soon-to-be heartbroken Prince finally buried its embryo in her head. What irritated her more was that after he addressed Aslan in that heavily flavored-accent of his, he turned to leave without a word to her. It was more than obvious he wished to say something else!_

_Boys…_

_Always so coy, no matter what century they were from!_

* * *

"Sue?" Lucy nudged her.

Susan slurped in a breath of life and looked at her youngest sibling. "...What's wrong?"

Lucy's innocent, smiling eyes teased her. "I know you miss him. We all know you miss him. Even that boy with the GLASSES knows you miss him. But don't forget," She poked her elder sister playfully, "He might need to _call _you again, remember?"

This chased the clouds from Susan's eyes as her plump lips curled into a smile she tried to keep back. When she finally dropped the corners of her lips into a casual line, Lucy rolled her eyes knowingly. Susan was never the actress type, but boy did she shoot for that role. Susan's eyes trailed up the seats, walls, and ceiling of the train. The colors of red flushed over the dull black, green splashed over the white seats, and yellow poured down the gray walls, painting the world she was living in.

Suddenly, she wasn't as colorblind as before...

Not when hope came in the shade of beige with a lion's face-hope called the magic horn.

* * *

A smile brightened Caspian's face as he rubbed an admiring thumb over the mouth of the horn.

"I just might one day," his tongue rolled over his words as he raised his squinting eyes to the sky. "Queen Susan, the Gentle..."

He heaved off his knees and walked away with a new air as the magic melted back into the world of Narina.

_His _world.

..._Their _world.

* * *

_*~*"It started out as a feeling  
Which then grew into a hope_  
_Which then turned into a quiet thought_  
_Which then turned into a quiet word_

_Now we're back to the beginning_  
_It's just a feeling and no one knows yet_  
_But just because they can't feel it too_  
_Doesn't mean that you have to forget_

_Let your memories grow stronger and stronger_  
_'Til they're before your eyes_  
_Pick a star on the dark horizon_  
_And follow the light_

_I'll come back_  
_When you call~ me_  
_No need to say goodbye..._

_You'll come back_  
_When it's over~_  
_No need to say good bye..."*~*_

* * *

**"The Call [Ending Credits] by Regina Spektor"**

* * *

**Author's Note:** Now this may be considered crap compared to the rest of CaSue one-shots, but I'm in love with the pairing and I needed to write something of my own to express my opinions about how they feel about each other. I've seen far too many unrealistic fanfictions about their "initial romance."


End file.
